


earning keys

by gottagofast



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Cool Hats, Crushes, F/M, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, One Shot, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, but tamer, makeshift family, scorpius finally gets his weasley sweater
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1373344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottagofast/pseuds/gottagofast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose had already shoved on the hat her mother had knit for her and the bobble hit her in the eye when she turned to look at him. He was still standing over his presents, regarding them warily like at any moment they might rear up and bite.</p><p>“Do you think they’ve done something to them?”</p><p>“Like what?” </p><p>“I dunno, hexed ‘em?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	earning keys

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from the song 'new york city' by among savages

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What do you think I got?”

She considered the boxes he’d brought down from his room to dump on one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace.

“A crystal ball, a gag wand and an ugly hat,” she said decisively, pointing, in turn, at three brightly wrapped gifts. He looked mildly alarmed for a moment.

“How did you know?!”

She hid a smile while he considered the gifts warily from a few feet away. “I didn’t but if you don’t open them, neither will you,” she went back to opening her Christmas gifts, missing the glare he shot her over his shoulder.

The common room was quiet, the only other gryffindor students staying at Hogwarts being first and second years too scared to leave their rooms with upperclassmen occupying the common room and sixth and seventh years basking in the peace and quiet of the castle over the holidays by sleeping in until noon.

Scorpius would’ve likely been one of them if Rose hadn’t been such a morning person, throwing open his curtains at the first hint of dawn and insisting he open gifts in front of the fire. He pretended to drag his feet reluctantly but he couldn’t help but smile at her fervent excitement. She loved getting presents, he, however, was not so enthused.

“Do you think they’ve done something to them?”

She had already shoved on the hat her mother had knit for her and the bobble hit her in the eye when she turned to look at him. He was still standing over his presents, regarding them warily like at any moment they might rear up and bite.

Rose swatted the bobble out of her face, pulling herself up to stand next to him. “Like what?”

“I dunno, hexed ‘em?”

She switched between taking a long appraising look at the pile of gifts and him. Conscious of her watching him, he folded his arms.

“Well, it’s not unheard of,” he defended himself to her silent disbelief. Her expression was enough to convey what she hadn’t said. Shifting his weight, he kept watching the brightly coloured packages, keeping his shoulder to her.

Finally he broke. “Oh, all right,” he slumped into the chair, crushing some of the softer packages beneath him. He fumbled with the first one he grabbed, a small brown box from an uncle living in Egypt.

Glancing at the neat writing, he threw it aside, reaching for another present.

“At least open them,” Rose protested, already reaching for the box on the couch. Scorpius darted forward before she could reach it, wrapping his hand loosely around her wrist.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” he warned, “this is the same guy who thought locking me in a room with a starving hag was a good practical joke.” As if on cue, a scuffling noise came from inside the box.

Glancing away from the box, which was now steadily bumping itself towards the edge of the couch, they made eye contact over his hand on her arm. For a beat he held still, unable to pull his hand back from the small fire that raged between his palm and the skin of her wrist. And then carefully, he let go, turning around to grab another present and missing the brief red glow of her ears burning with embarrassment. He came up with a slightly squished tin wrapped in bright ribbon, Hagrid's chicken scratch on the card.

“Scorpius,” he read aloud. “Merry Christmas,” he stopped, surprised. “Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her. “that could’ve been much worse.”

She leaned forward to peer at the box. “Does it say anything else?”

He flipped the card over looking for anything else he might have written but the rest was blank. ”Nothing,”

She reached forward slipping the lid off the tin. Peering inside, Scorpius grinned, Rose, however, frowned. Reaching inside the tin, she pulled one of the scones and slammed it hard against the stone floor, leaving a white scratch.

“You could break your teeth on these!” she exclaimed.

He nodded sagely. “I think that was the idea."

The Hogwarts gamekeeper had no lost love for the Malfoy family after all the trouble they’d been to the wizarding world and despite him being Rose's best friend, Hagrid had never particularly warmed to Scorpius. He had also suspected it was as much a personal matter as anything - though he resembled his father more than anyone, there were marked differences in his softer features and sunnier disposition - and most people could distinguish where his father ended and he began, but he’d heard rumours…

“Heads up,” Rose called from across the room. He let out a hard breath when a package landed on his stomach. Expertly wrapped in paper enchanted to swirl with falling snow, his name was written on the card in her looping script. “Open it,” she urged.

Rose had been right about one present so far. He unwrapped the gift to find an extraordinarily ugly hat, slightly too big for him. He admired it, grinning unabashedly before jamming it on his head right down over his ears.

“Thanks Rosie!” he exclaimed from beneath a mass of purple and red wool. “It’s great!”

She groaned and feel back against the floor. “Don’t make fun of me, I worked hard on that hat.”

He pressed a hand to his heart, turning away from where he thought she was sitting (he couldn’t see very well from beneath the woolly brim) as if mortally offended. “You think so little of me?”

“Even less,” she groaned from beneath her arm.

He pushed the hat up on his forehead, focused on digging for another present and missed the way her eyes softened when he kept it on.

She was momentarily distracted, however, when he tugged a large floppy present from the bottom of the pile. He shook it slightly, “What is this?” he wondered.

But Rose already knew. She scooted up beside him to look at it closer - the shoddy wrapping job, the sheer bulk of the present inside. “Oh, no,” she groaned. Scorpius opened it slowly, eyes shining at the pink crawling up her face.

“A Weasley jumper!” he exclaimed delightedly, holding up an absolute monster of an orange jumper with a large misshapen _S_ on the front. She leaned back against the chair, shoulder to shoulder with him while he ran his hands over his latest gift.

“Hey,” she smiled, a thought occurring to her. “You’re officially part of the family now.”

He smiled down at the sweater in his hands and then looked up at Rose, something in his eyes soft and his expression undefinably warm, making her pause. She breathed in deeply, suddenly feeling as if she could never get enough oxygen, unwilling to look away.

It didn’t happen often - though it’d been happening more and more frequently lately - sometimes something happened to her around him that she had no words for. She could be talking to someone at breakfast and catch his eye or sneaking down to the kitchens together after bed and for one dizzying instant she would see him and only him and it was as if the earth shifted beneath her feet. She felt disorientated and lost, her stomach tight and looking at him became as painful and mesmerizing as staring directly into the sun.

He smiled brilliantly at her after a moment of quiet. “Just don’t tell my father,” and just like that Rose was back in the common room, swallowing against her dry throat.

“Would he mind less…” she held up the orange sleeve against his pale skin “… if it was green?”

Scorp nodded thoughtfully at the idea. “You know, I think so.”

He reached behind him onto the chair and pulled off another box, still talking. “You know what the real risk would be then,” he warned

“What?”

He looked at her seriously. “He might want one for himself.”

Rose's laughter echoed all the way up to the year seven dorms, where a groggy student pulled his head out from under the covers before rolling over to go back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I gave myself this prompt /two years ago/ and im just now doing it. I'm sorry for any bad obvious mistakes, I didn't edit this at all. I've been awake for two days and I wrote this at 5 in the morning this is insane, I'm taking a nap


End file.
